Big match preview: Katie McCabe wants royal flush in the House of Windsor to crown 2023

For so much of that period, theirs was an existence secreted from public view, unremarkable and even, in some cases, unrecorded.

Tonight’s trip to Belfast – at Windsor Park, the latest historic first of 2023 – will be the 14th fixture of a remarkably peripatetic odyssey which has taken this team to far-flung arenas.

From steamy St Louis to sizzling Sydney, not to mention a paddling pool in Albania and the holiday sun of Marbella.

From novel national stadia outings south, and now north, it has also brought them into the hearts of the Irish public.

So many thousands went ‘down under’ to follow their maiden World Cup odyssey or, later, flocked to the Aviva to belatedly hail their return.

It has been dizzying at times, lengthy periods of disappointment in defeat at the start of the year, before a remarkable World Cup impact, signatured by captain Katie McCabe’s set-piece goal.

A point made against Nigeria before arguments raged.

So suddenly, it seemed, almost abject abasement, costing them a modicum of public adoration and losing a manager they once devoted.

Players who might once have walked down Grafton Street unnoticed were suddenly central to one of the year’s most compelling sporting melodramas.

It was deeply uncomfortable for many of them, but reflective of novel status and all the dreary detritus that entails.

The revelation that players had aired grievances, and been ignored, reminded all of us that those within the sport remain second-class citizens.

The year ends with yet more drama to come but of a wholly more encouraging nature; a presumed sixth-successive win under a caretaker boss, Eileen Gleeson, in Belfast this evening, will mark the final knockings of a restorative interregnum.

As 2024 beckons, and with it occupation of Europe’s elite stage, there will be a new manager in situ, marshalling a team still hungry for novel horizons.

While the first-half of this year was all about finding a way to cope with the most significant moment of their sporting lives, the second half of it has seen the squad beginning to discover a little more about themselves.

The much-vaunted alteration in tactics is over-blown by some cheerleaders; Ireland were always going to be able to express themselves more fluidly against paltry opponents.

Last Friday night was a reminder that even that vaulting ambition is not without its pratfalls; against Hungary in Tallaght, Ireland were dealt a humbling defeat to their ploy in seeking to deploy McCabe in an advanced central role.

Cowed into withdrawing her, while shifting the balance of a hitherto uninspired midfield effort and reshaping the defensive foundation, Ireland escaped to victory but elite nations next year will not nearly be so generous.

The questions that persisted throughout this year will remain a consistent thread regardless of the manager’s identity, or indeed their tactical approach.

They must negotiate the fine balance between allowing their sprinkling of world-class talent to truly flourish, while so much of the supporting cast remain admirably ambitious but, as of yet, limited in experience and endeavour.

The 31st meeting of the two football teams on this island should produce an inevitable win for the superior visitors.

The locals have been egging up the prospective attendance for some days now – the latest wheeze was 10,000 which, at six o’clock on a school night, would be quite the achievement.

They may more realistically eye between seven and eight thousand.

Still, even that number would serve to underline the deep disappointment of the recent Tallaght crowds for Gleeson’s women which have been far from madding; like many sporting outfits, particularly those of a female persuasion, the public’s support is fickle and not unconditional.

Their temporary purgatory in the second tier of European football has hardly helped matters, hence the impatience to once more rub shoulders with the elite.

“Playing at the tournament in the summer has just made me so hungry for more,” says McCabe.

“That’s not just for myself, it’s for all the girls included. We’ve got the taste of it now and we want more for Ireland.

“With the Nations League, it’s about bringing in younger players, getting them the experience, having the experience there already with the older girls and really trying to improve ourselves internally and making the squad as competitive as possible.

“It’s been really enjoyable, but for us we want more, 2024 is going to be a massive one for us as well.

“With success it brings that expectation. We’ve certainly worked hard to change that narrative. I’ve obviously been a part of this team for the last eight years, when we were always the underdogs and we always had to fight for those wins.

“We have now put ourselves in that position where we can get on a winning streak of five games, qualify for tournaments and we want more of that.”

It is sometimes easy to forget that Northern Ireland were once an outfit that McCabe’s Ireland jealously envied.

After all, they had already achieved the ambition of qualifying for a major tournament before their rivals; outwitting a Ukrainian side that had embarrassed the Republic in 2020 to do so.

Since then, they have slithered once more into that netherworld of mid-European obscurity from which McCabe and her team are so impatient to escape.

They may still navigate a route to a play-off in this group but, assuming the improving Hungary frank last Friday’s effort with an expected win in Albania, Tanya Oxtoby’s side will need an unlikely win.

The genial Aussie saw enough in Hungarian obduracy and Irish ineptitude to know that such an upset is a possibility.

The visitors should be able to extricate enough improvement to ensure it remains highly unlikely.